Environment professionals and campaigners are warning the new Government's claim to be "the greenest government ever" is already threadbare following the decision to abolish the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and to stop funding the Sustainable Development Commission.
The 40-year old RCEP joins 33 other DEFRA arm's length bodies to close and environment secretary Caroline Spelman said many were set up at a time when understanding of and engagement with environmental issues was less mainstream.
She also announced DEFRA would remove funding from the SDC, set up in 2000 and expanded in 2006, leaving its fate to decisions by co-funders in the devolved administrations.
Mrs Spelman said her Department is determined to play the lead role in sustainability across government and, from the next financial year, she would be taking a personal lead.
"I also fully support the role of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in this area: powerful scrutiny within the democratic process," she said in a Commons statement.
She admitted the RCEP had made a significant contribution over 40 years but said the Government now has many other sources of advice and challenge. But her statement provoked advice and challenge.
"RCEP and SDC were key providers of cross-cutting, forward looking, authoritative advice to the Government," said Environmental Protection UK chief executive Philip Mulligan.
"Without them the Government will increasingly be influenced by partisan advice from vested interests, which will hardly aid the development of effective environmental policy. The coalition Government's repeated insistence that they will be the greenest government ever looks weaker by the day, and action is urgently needed to back up the rhetoric."
Friends of the Earth executive director Andy Atkins said the coalition would have to be held to account on its promise to be the greenest government ever.
"The Sustainable Development Commission has played a crucial role in helping Government departments work together to tackle the triple threats of climate change, economic downturn and inequality - as well as keeping a critical check on progress," he said.
